My 3d Printer build

[stephenmtate]

Here is an interesti ng and cheap media mix.  Benefiber (solid) and vodka (binder)...  I'll leave it up to someone else to add a punch line... ;~)     

http://ceramicartsdaily.org/methods-techniques/the-printed-pot/?floater=99

[ArtF]

interesti ng..

Art

[Ya-Nvr-No]

Another interesti ng related article that might be of interest.

http://www.mmsonline.com/articles/aerospace-parts-from-powder

[ArtF]

Hi Guys:

   Well, the building of the platform in a box is underway. . ( pics later ) , and Im working on the inket printing head that
I plan to hang from the gantry.

   I got an HP1000 printer from walmart and tore it apart. It has very few parts really that are important . I should probably have played with it software-wise first to see if I can fool it to do the required things in software, but decided insterad to see if I can build the inkjet into a box that I can hang, with the jet head hanging down to print on powder.. ( or t-shirts ) at any size the gantry can dictate.

  So.. after removing all the parts, I discover the only real impedimen t to making the injet a replaceme nt for a cnc spindle.. is the little motor that drives the carriage back and forth. It hangs down.. not good.

  Picture one shows the injet assembly laying on a plexi face plate that will form the
bottom of the box. The motor has been removed and moved to the back of the carriage. ( it used to be bolted in that round hole in the base plate upside down. ) This leaves the bottom flat with the inkjet the lowest point on the carriage.

  The following pictures show how the motor has been moved and the belt reconnect ed to the carriage. The motor wires are reversed to make the motor run backwards as its now upside down to its normal position.

  The last photo shows whats left. A circuit board, a paper drive motor and its encoder wheel, and two opto sensors.. one for paper in, and one for paper out. Once I put all this back together I'll see if I can write a driver that can print one line of output at a time on command. The theory being that this box will replace a spindle on a mill, and thus be able to print any picture to the width and length of a cnc driven gantry in single line prints at differing positions .


  Ill post more photos as I go, and will let you know if its all a waste of time due to firmware limitatio ns, or if I can fool it to be what I want it to be.

Price so far:

  HP1000 printer:   $28.00 Canadian.
  Acrylic sheet     $20.00 Canadian.
  Access to LAser:   priceless .





Art

[ArtF]

and the last photo..

[Dan]

Art,

Sorry if it sounds a silly question, but how exactly does this HP Inkjet head help in making a 3D printer?

Dan

[ArtF]

Dan:

  There's a few ways of making a 3d printer. Most known is extrusion, where you melt ABS or platic wire in a tube and lay it down layer by layer.. Its probably the most popular. ( We're building such an extrusion head as well , we want a dual head system in the end.)

  Another type is powder 3d.. Where you take a platform raised to the top of a box and
put a layer of powder on top about .2mm thick. Then you use an inkjet head to spray ink or binder on the powder as the layer. Lower the platform, spread a new layer, and injet it again..

   Each type has its advantage s and disadvant ages. Thermal extrusion is a bit rough. Some companies put the build platform in a heat controlle d box to keep it slightly soft during the build.. but the result is generally a bit rough.

  Powder 3d is much higher resolutio n as an inkjet head nozzles are very close together. But to do powder 3d, you need an inkjet or simular way of printing each layer into the powder. An inkjet head will "spray" ink about 5mm from its nozzles..
so thats what this device is for. Its our sprayer. Basically, all thats needed is
an injet printer but the inkjet head must be the lowest point of the printer.


   With thermal extrusion its hard to do overhangs, with powder its easy, the layers of powder support any printing on top of them. As I say each has its own limitatio ns, so we're going to build a dual head to experimen t with each. Do a youtube for 3d printing and youll see several different ways of doing it. Im intereste d in this mostly because its still in its infancy.. no-one is REALLY an expert, and many experimen ts need to be done to select good materials, inks, temperatu res, plastics etc.. Sounds like fun!

Art

[Dan]

Art,

Thanks for the details. I can see now what you're trying to do. How are you going to spread the powder?

A company I used to work for had a large 3D printer which were were using for prototypi ng. They were loading it with a substance which was probably some kind of resin powder mixed with some bonding liquid. There were 2 tanks - one was filled with the actual resin that would form the part, while the other was filled with a substance that would (also solidify) act as a filler.

The head was spreading the substance s in 0.02mm thick layers and had UV lights at the bottom. The mixture was instantly curing under the UV light and the table move down by another 0.02mm and next layer was printed.

This was really a fun toy to play with. Was the fastest prototypi ng tool I've ever worked with, maintaini ng tight tolerance s. However the toughest part was removing that filler material using a water jet - especiall y in tiny holes and tight corners. Also , the materials were rather expensive - about $0.30 per gram. The largest part I've prototype d on it was roughly 30x30x10c m. The resin weighing around 1g/cc, that part cost more than $2500!! It was a few years ago though, may be the prices are a bit lower today.

Dan

[ArtF]

Hi Dan:

 Im goiung to try clay powder first.. ( I have two kilns here..and a potters wheel. )

  But Ill try various substance s.. as long as the catalyst fits in an inkjet ..

Art

[stephenmtate]

So your going to print yourself a pot, eh....?

[ArtF]

I think WHAT to print will always be the issue.. more so that I cant do CAD very well.

I suspect my interest is in finding cool looking math algorithm s that define a shape..
and printing those..

Art

[ArtF]

Hi Guys:

  Well, I finally finished modifying a hp1000 to do 3d printing. Ive read a lot of people running
microproc essor boards and such to fool the printer into doing other than its designed intent, but I know
most of us dont have that capabilit y. So this printer has been modified to print on the bottom of its case
so that it can replace a cnc spindle. It has no modified hardware and the paper sensor has been replaced
by a set of Gearotic gears to fool it into thinking its printing on paper..

  Heres a video fo it printing. Its ready to be hung, but before we do, we'll make another type of extrusion
head.. more on that later..

  Heres the video of the printer printing a few test pages.. the idea is to simply print a "page" that is just one
line of graphics. .then move the spindle and print another.. ect..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPKCiy-JX8E


\Art

[Dan]

Good work, Art.

The gears set is attached to the printer's paper feed motor as I understan d it. but can you explain who is that it rotates in both direction s? Isn't it supposed to be rotating in one direction only? And why are you doing that?

Dan

[ArtF]

Hi Dan:

   Yes, the gears are connected to the paper driver roller. ( I didnt have to redesign any of the mechanics, they all come apart when
you take apart the printer. The assemblie s, as hung, are how they appear in the printer, just rearrange d is all. (And I had to move that
pesky carriage motor from underneat h. ). The paper roller was cut short, and thats the shaft for the first gear.

   The gears are there to slow down the paper drive so I could attach a tag to drive the paper sensor. Suprising ly, the paper driver does move both ways. The inkjet cartridge has about 100 nozzles, so to do high res printing, the printer uses different nozzles and very quickly
moves the paper up and down to position for each jet of nozzles.. It isnt until you slow it down with the gears that you get to see the actual machinina tions the thing takes to print a complex line. Luckily for me you can do a line of graphics without doing that up and down
thing. The gears actually play no part in operation other than to fool the printer into thinking it has paper in it and is printing on something . It has to see the tag open to imagine that paper has entered the tag.. and after printing, it must remove the tag to see
the paper has exited. Timing isnt REAL critical, but you get a paper jam error or missing paper error if the timing isnt close.
  The gears I used seem to have done the trick in that regard. All motion though is designed into the printer.. I have no effect on it at all, I just command a print, and what you see in the video is what I get..

Art

[Dan]

Thanks, Art. That' very interesti ng to learn that the paper moves back and forth. I would have never thought so.

Dan